Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Overview

So many times developers create the same sort of game over and over again, to the point where they wear out the genre. Now Midway has taken the third person action genre and put quite a few different twists and turns to create a very unique mind-boggling action game. It’s Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and it’s a whole lot of fun.

Gameplay

Its one thing to have the stealth genre and another thing to have the arcade style shoot em up games. But it’s a whole other story when you combine the mind with the gun. And that’s exactly what Midway has done with this extremely fun mostly fast paced third person shooter title.

You start the game with some opening cut scenes. These introduce you to your character special agent Nick Scryer, who has his brain washed and forgets all of his prior telepathic skills. The Movement (the bad guys in the game) really just take this super hero sort of character and creates him into you everyday GI Joe. Following his unit being captured he stumbles across double agent Sarah who puts some sort of substance in Nick to help him regain his memory. This story was actually quite interesting throughout the entire game, it really kept me interested and wanting to keep playing. You will find that through this game you we remember more and more of your prior skills to help you make your way through the game.

Let me tell you something, you start the game for the first ten to fifteen minutes or so without much at all. Just a simple gun, and your melee attacks, no mind controlling powers just yet. You go through this portion of the game having to learn how to use the stealth and just flat out shooting down enemies. This is pretty short-lived as your melee attacks and your guns end up taking a back seat in this game.

Once your character starts to regain his memory, you will go through this in game tutorials, which help you regain your skills. This is where the heart and the fun of the game truly lie. You start off by learning the basics, which is picking up guards and throwing them and picking up objects and throwing those objects at the guards. From there you will go on to learn remote viewing which allows you to look ahead of where you are and shows what you are facing in the coming rooms. You can also take energy out (gain life) of live enemies, to help replenish your own. This can be done in two ways’ - the most beneficial way is to sneak up on guards and suck out all the life from him. Or you can throw the guard around a bit and then suck what is left out of him. Later on in the game you will be discovering more and more abilities that I won’t spoil for you, but you can see when you get there.

So the million-dollar question is, does this all work? And my simple answer is yes, and quite well. You go through the game with a great story and a great combination of stealth and action, and in the later levels strategy. The entire game goes at a very fast pace, and depending on the difficulty setting you have it on will depend on how much action your getting yourself into. The different difficulty settings have some distinct variations to them. You not only will get more enemies in the harder difficulty levels but you will also get a lot more of them. Let’s just say that there is a huge difference between the easy difficulty setting and the hard.

The gameplay of Psi Ops is fast paced and a whole lot of fun. The game is truly addictive, with the ability to pick up and object and just throw it at enemies there has never been anything like it. Or if you get really bored to just start throwing enemies all over the vast environments can also be a blast to play. There is nothing like throwing your enemies all over the place, and watching the rag-doll effects, courtesy of the powerful HAVOC engine. Overall I must say I don’t have much to complain about. This was just a solid game that had all the right making for a solid third person action game.

Graphics

We have seen so many great looking games hit the Xbox that the standards have been raised quite a few times since the console was released a few years ago. The graphics have become sharper, crisper, and a whole lot more detailed. Gamers have become even pickier over the years. So how does Psi Ops meet these tough standards?

Well Psi Ops is not going to blow anyone away with it’s visuals but it does a wonderful job of making the game a fun experience. And I say that because the rag doll effects in the game are just down right great. You watch the enemies being thrown all over the environments is just a great thing to watch. The rest of the graphics are pretty solid. Nick himself has quite a bit of detail but nothing over the top. The environments are all interactive but aren’t the best looking. After time you feel like you have been through the same environments more then once.

Overall the game has pretty good graphics. It won’t win any awards or be remembered for the graphics, but it does enough to compliment the stellar gameplay.

Fun Factor

Psi Ops is one of the most enjoyable third person action games I have played in a long time. It was a nice breath of fresh air to have these telepathic abilities that worked so well with the game. I must hand it to the developers for doing a great job of putting all of Nick’s abilities to use and at the right times. They split up the game in a way that I think was dead on; you get just enough action and strategy mixed in this game.

Overall

Psi Ops was just a great game all the way around. It probably won’t be on anyone’s game of the year nominations but it will be in plenty of households giving gamers a great third person telepathic action time. If you are wondering if you should purchase this game I would give it a definite recommendation and for those of you who are skeptical you can’t go wrong by renting this game.

Joel Szerlip

The owner and editor-in-chief of Darkstation.com. I've been apart of the website since 2002 and purchased the website in 2010. Owning and running Darkstation is a dream come true. I love video games and I love writing and talking about them even more.

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